Article as it originally
appeared in The Rollins Alumni Record, Volume 65: 4, Winter 1988.

At
a press conference during the week he was to receive the Nobel Prize for
Chemistry, Donald Cram '41 exhibited his characteristically good sense of
humor. Relaxed during his first official
meeting with the press and the other honorees for Nobel Prizes in chemistry,
physics and economic sciences, Cram attempted to put it all into
perspective, and at the same time, put everyone at ease.

"Someone
asked me if I won the Nobel Peace Prize for Chemistry'," Cram quipped to
the gathering at the Royal Academy of Sciences. "I had to tell them `No, I
won a piece of the chemistry prize.' "Clearly at his best when "on stage,"
the affable research scientist seemed at ease, confident and in control.
Wearing one of his 150 "trademark" bow ties and flashing a boyish grin, the
68-year-old UCLA professor produced a plastic model of one of his
synthetically-produced chem­ical compounds. Using the model to demonstrate,
Cram explained how the principle of host-guest chemistry works. In the
process, he demonstrated a type of charm
that has made him a popular
professor and mentor to thousands of chemistry students in the U.S. and around
the world. Cram, who majored in chemistry during
his undergraduate years at Rollins,
shares the Nobel Prize with Dr.Jean-Marie Lehn of Strasbourg,
France and Charles J. Pedersen of
Salem, NJ. The three were cited for
their work in synthesizing
molecules that mimic important biological processes. The announcement from The Royal Academy of Sciences said that Cram, Lehn and Pedersen have laid the founda­tions
of what is today one of the most
active and expanding fields of chemical research, a field for which Cram has
coined the term "host-guest" chemistry while Lehn calls it "supramolecular"
chemistry. The research could have widespread implications for environmental
and medical science, and for energy production.

According to Cram, research scientists
are just beginning to develop the field. "We have just scratched the
surface," he said.

Cram attended Rollins on a National
Honorary Scholarship, worked as an assistant in the chemistry department,
and was active in theater, Chapel Choir, Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Society, and
Zeta Alpha Epsilon. But the road to Stock­holm had its beginnings long
before that.

"I grew up on Aid to Dependent
Chil­dren," Cram revealed during a candid interview at his hotel. "My
parents were immigrants to the U.S. My father was Scottish and my mother was
a German, who rebelled against a strict Mennonite faith. From my father's
side of the family, I learned English upper class values. From my mother, I
learned to love English literature. I think that made me something of a
romantic," he confided.

Cram was the only male in a family of
five that suffered financial hardships, he said, because of the untimely
death of his father. "My father died when I was not quite four," he said,
"so I learned how to work at an early age."

Cram tried just about every odd job
imaginable, from picking fruit to tossing newspapers, to painting houses.
Growing up in the small town of Chester, Vermont, he bartered for things like
piano lessons.

"I would offer to cleanup or perform odd
jobs in order to learn music," the Nobel laureate revealed. "By the time I
was 18, I must have had at least 18 different jobs," he said, "but I learned
how to amuse myself by making games out of everything. I would create games
to break the monotony, and that is a strategy I continue to use, even in my
research."

From his childhood, Cram says he learned
the lessons of hard work and self-discipline, but he also learned to be
crea­tive, and to be a creative planner of time. "I'm not all that bright,"
he claimed. "Mainly, I'm creative, and I'm also single-minded. If I become
interested in something, I stick to it."

Another value he learned from his
family was that "education was the path to righteousness." When he read a
notice about an Honors Scholarship to
Rollins, he applied. "President Hamilton Holt came to New York and
interviewed me," he said. "The scholarship provided a great
opportunity. It opened doors, and it allowed me to grow up in a very nice
environment. "While
studying at Rollins, Cram was able to develop his love affair with
chemistry, an affair that began with his first high school course. "There was an
instant fit between me and chemistry," he acknowledged. "I thought it was fun and
creative. I thought that going into
research in chemistry would give
me an opportunity to do something
new every day."

At Rollins Cram worked
as an assistant
in the chemistry department and became known for building his own chemistry
equipment. He credits professors Guy Waddington and Eugene Farley with being
mentors and
"father figures," and for helping him pursue
career goals that required graduate
training. "They wrote letters of recommendation to about 17 graduate schools," he
recalled. "I was accepted at three, and
finally attended the University of Nebraska.
Ironically, I have since lectured at every
one of those schools, and I delight in reminding them that they turned me
down for graduate study."

For that matter, Cram
has lectured at
most major research universities in the world. He won a Guggenheim
Fellowship in 1955, was elected to the
National Academy of Sciences in 1961,
and has won numerous American
Chemical Society Awards for his
work in organic chemistry. Rollins
honored him with its first Distin­guished
Alumnus Award in 1915.

He is the author of more
than 350
research papers and eight books on organic chemistry. He has taught graduate
and post-doctoral students from 21 different countries. Even without the Nobel
Prize, his legacy
to chemistry is of major significance, says
Professor Erich Blossey of the Rollins chemistry
faculty.

Cram
began his professional career in chemical research at Merck Laboratories
during the war years. He worked in penicillin research under the
tutelage of a hard-driving and devoted
scientist named Max Tischler. From
Merck he went to Harvard, where he
studied with Paul Bartlett and
Robert Burns Woodward. According to Cram, Woodward, who
received the Nobel Prize in 1965, was the greatest organic chemist
of this century. "He received one Nobel
Prize, and I believe he could have
received two if he had lived,"
Cram said during the inter­view in Stockholm.

Cram began his teaching
career at UCLA
in 1947, and that, like chemistry, was "an instant fit." "I
grew up with a
provincial school that went on to become a fine national
university," he said.

Although he says that
research is a gamble and that only about 20 percent of it pays off, Cram's
career was productive, he claims, "because I
tried to be creative and flexible and I was
willing to move
from one field to another. I ended-up in a type of chemistry
that has yielded very quickly."

It was around 1975,
when a scientist in Zurich, Switzerland won
a Nobel Prize for his research on the stereochemistry of organic molecules,
that Cram first became aware that he was competitive for the world's most
distinguished award. He has since been nominated regularly for the Prize.

Asked about the
environment for scien­tific research in the United States, Cram replied that it is good
because "we encourage originality. When
you combine that with discipline, it
forms the basis for good science and good
scientists."

His career has not been
without sacrifice, said Cram, who admitted that his two wives also have
sacrificed for his career. His first wife
was Rollins classmate Jean Turner '41, who
received a master's degree in social work
from Columbia University. His present wife, Jane, is a former chemistry
professor at Mt. Holyoke. Cram called her
"an inspiring and unsparing critic."

Cram said he chose not
to have children
"because I would have been either a bad father or a bad
scientist."

Although he has received
numerous honors
throughout the world, Cram treasures the Nobel
Prize as a "symbol of excellence."
Established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the
Swedish chemical
engineer who invented dynamite, the Prize is presented to "those
who have conferred the greatest benefit on
mankind." On
December 10, the former Rollins financial aid student received his
award from the
King of Sweden.

When asked what advice
he would have for future generations of Rollins students, Cram replied, "Be
single-minded; love what you are doing and
make it the centerpiece of your life."

That does not mean you
shouldn't have
fun, Cram explained. "I have had a lot of fun, and when I am not working I
indulge in
sports that provide total escape." His great loves are surfing, skiing and mountain
climbing-sports that he admits are violent,
dangerous, and
romantic.

Despite his exalted
status as a research scientist, Cram said he still enjoys teaching. In fact, he
has even taught introductory courses
for non-science majors. The "Cram
creativity" came into play when he
brought his guitar into class to
help break the ice for his students.

"Chemistry is not
everything in my life. I have friends outside of chemistry," he said with a grin. "I
really do."